OUT RUN
THE TEENAGER WHO CONVERTED THE ARCADE OF THE CENTURY

► THE ARCADE THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING

In 1986, Sega launched an arcade cabinet unlike anything seen before. Out Run wasn't a standard racing game: it was a Ferrari Testarossa convertible, a blonde girl beside you, sun, open road, and three songs that stuck in your head forever. Its creator Yu Suzuki wanted to capture the feeling of driving along the coastal roads of Europe rather than winning a competition. And he succeeded.

The arcade drained pockets without mercy. Everyone wanted a home version, and when U.S. Gold announced conversions for home computers, the anticipation was enormous. What nobody imagined was that the C64 version would end up being the work of a 17-year-old lad from Shropshire.

► THE STORY BEHIND IT: THE BOY, THE GARAGE AND THE ARCADE

Martin Webb had programmed his first games for the Texas Instruments TI-99 from home alongside his father Dennis, who handled graphics and business. When the TI-99 market dried up, Martin switched to the C64 and taught himself to program it. To find a bigger publisher, he developed a shameless Hang-On clone called Max Torque, with motorbikes instead of cars. Then, using that game's assets, he began building an Out Run clone: same perspective, same style, but with a Porsche instead of the Ferrari to avoid legal issues.

Martin took the arcade cabinet home to his garage. Without the arcade's source code or any design documentation, he recorded hours of gameplay on video and took exhaustive notes on every corner, every slope, every palm tree. The goal was for the C64 roads to feel the same as the arcade's, even if they couldn't look the same.

► THE BRANCHING ROUTES PROBLEM

One of the arcade's defining features was its branching route system: at certain points on the road you could choose between two paths, multiplying replayability. Martin tried to implement this on the C64 but the machine simply couldn't manage a multi-load system on the fly.

The solution was elegant within its constraints: instead of real-time forks, the player chooses the route before starting (A, B, C, D or E), which loads from tape or disk. Five distinct routes, each with its own scenery and corners. Not quite the same thing, but it allows variety without collapsing the hardware.

► SCREENSHOT GALLERY

📷 See real screenshots at Lemon64 and MobyGames (links below)

► GRAPHICS: FAST, BUT PIXELATED

Compared to the arcade, the difference was abysmal — something any player of the era knew beforehand. But compared to other C64 racing games, the result was quite decent. The sense of speed was there, the scenery changed noticeably between routes, and the road curved with enough fluidity for the experience to be enjoyable.

The rival car sprites were blocky and there was pop-in (objects appearing suddenly), but the game moved at a good pace. Martin used some optimisation tricks, such as reusing scenery assets between routes with different colour palettes, to make it seem like there was more variety than there actually was.

► SOUND: JASON BROOKE AND THE SID CHIP

This is where the C64 truly shines. Jason Brooke received an audio cassette with the arcade music recorded in a real arcade, and from that had to recreate the tracks for the SID chip. The result is extraordinary: Magical Sound Shower and Splash Wave sound brilliant on the SID, with that characteristic blend of synthesiser and melody that only Commodore's chip could deliver.

The European version didn't include Passing Breeze, the arcade's third track, for reasons that were never fully clarified since there was enough free memory to have included it. An unjustified cut that fans always lamented. The American version didn't add it either.

► GAMEPLAY: PATIENCE REWARDED

The game needed a little time to hook you. The first few minutes could disappoint anyone coming from the arcade expecting the same experience, but once you accepted the hardware's limitations, Out Run on C64 was a solid and addictive racer. The controls responded well, the corner difficulty was well calibrated, and the route system gave reasons to come back.

An important detail: in the European version, if you played on an NTSC system, the timer ran too fast and the game became unfairly difficult. The solution was to switch emulation to PAL mode — players of the era who didn't know this likely suffered more than a few frustrating sessions.